Chapter 3
This time, when Danny woke up there were definite hunger pains in his stomach. The sun light was beginning to fade. There was a greyish cast to the room now and shadows were beginning to creep in. He must have slept most of the day. Glancing over at the crib he was surprised to see that Grace was still sleeping. Babies slept a lot, he supposed, but all day? Had she already awoken once and was now napping again? He must have been more tired than he had thought.
He watched as the baby began to stir. She was a pretty little thing with whispy chestnut hair a few shades darker than her mother's and an angel face that was very much the same, though Grace's was chubby with babiness. He couldn't remember if she had her mother's stunning eyes. She was so tiny he couldn't imagine her being more than a month or two old. His savior definitely had had her hands full with the two of them.
Shifting a bit, Danny eased himself into a semi reclining position. There was some tenderness in his back, but no pain. Looking down at his bare chest he cold see the pink scars of the exit wounds. Not really a pretty sight, but they looked to be healing okay.
His movement caused the bed to squeak and the loud noise startled Grace who began to whimper.
"Sh, sh," Danny worriedly crooned when the whimpers increased to full cries. "It's okay, sweetheart. "Sh, sh, ....it's okay." He was trying not to panic, but her cries were becoming louder. He tried to reach into the crib to pat her back or something, but he could only touch her small foot which was kicking with more and more force.
Glancing at the door, Danny expected to see the woman entering any second, but he heard nothing from the other room. Grace's cries were becoming more insistant and he knew he couldn't just sit there and do nothing.
Slowly swinging his feet to the floor, Danny sat up in bed. He felt a slight sense of vertigo, but waited for it to pass. When he was ready he stood up on shaky legs, surprised at how hard this simple action was as sweat began to break out all over his body and black dots swam across his vision. Knowing that he wasn't going to be able to stand for very long, Danny reached into the crib and scooped up the baby. Holding her as tightly as he dared, he quickly sat down again, the dizziness caused by his sudden exertion making his head spin. It was surprising to him how such a little thing as Grace could seem so heavy. He was much weaker than he thought. How long had he been out, he wondered.
Swinging his legs back up onto the bed, Danny once again reclined against the headboard, the black dots slowly fading from his vision and his heart beat slowing down. Mercifully, Grace had stopped crying the instant he had picked her up. She was now content to chew on his dog tags, happily drooling onto his bare chest.
"Well, now what are we going to do, Little One?" he asked Grace. "I sure hope you aren't hungry, because I don't know where your mother is." He glance down at his new charge and couldn't help but smile as she toothlessly grinned up at him. She did have her mothers eyes, he noticed.
Feeling very unsure of himself, Danny made himself as comfortable as possible and prepared to wait for the woman to return. He began to pat Grace's back as he tunelessly hummed, not knowing what else to do.
Not five minutes later a door open and he heard light footsteps walking towards his room. The door began to open slowly, then flew the rest of the way open, banging into the dresser.
"It's okay," Danny said quickly, seeing the panic in the woman's green eyes as she took in the empty crib. "I was moving around a bit and I woke her up. I didn't mean to," he babbled. "I didn't mean to scare you and I probably shouldn't have picked her up, but she started crying and I didn't know what else to do, so I , well...I'm sorry to have scared you like that," he finished lamely, feeling like an idiot.
After seeing Grace safe in his arms, the woman slumped slightly against the door jamb, her hand still pressed against her heart. She offered him a tremulous smile. "It's okay," she said as she moved accross the room and began to disentangle Grace from his arms and dogtags. "I should apologize to you. I knew she wouldn't sleep very long, she never does in the afternoon, but I wanted to go to Mr. Chan's to get some more salve. I took longer than expected. I'm truely sorry," she said, looking earnestly at him. "Are you okay?"
Flustered by her apology, Danny could only stammer, "I'm fine. Just fine." They looked awkwardly at each other, not quite sure what to say next. Danny's stomach let out a loud rumble. He blushed and she smiled.
"Hungry?"
"Uh, yes ma'am," he replied sheepishly.
"Good," she said, turning to leave the room. "Mrs. Chan sent a pot of chicken and rice soup." Within moments she was back with his dinner.
Laying Grace on the bed and giving her a toy to play with, the woman then placed a towel around Danny's neck. Realizing that she was going to spoon feed him, Danny began to protest.
"You, you don't have to do this," he stammered. "I can feed myself. I could probably even make it to the kitchen. I don't ......"
"Listen Flyboy," she interrupted, though not unkindly. "You've been lying in this bed for almost 3 weeks. You're recovering from two bullet wounds, blood loss and an infection that had your temperature spiking up to 104 degrees. If you think there is any chance that I'm going to let you get out of this bed and walk into the kitchen and possibly undue all my hard work by having you pass out on me, then you are seriously delusional."
"Fine," Danny continued to protest, "I won't go into the kitchen. But I can feed myself."
She looked him over for a long moment. "I bet you got dizzy and had little black spots floating accross your eyes when you picked up Grace." She looked him straight in the eye and Danny looked away sheepishly, knowing that what she said was dead on. "Broke into a sweat? Had weak, shaky legs?" Danny nodded. "I worked hard to keep you alive, and now that you're awake I don't want you to take any steps backwards, okay? You don't have to act all macho. Humor me, Flyboy," she said, offering him a smile.
"Okay," Danny finally submitted, feeling like an chastised school boy. He didn't like having to be fed like a baby, but the truth was he was feeling pretty weak. Picking up Grace had taken a lot more out of him then he was willing to admit.
Silence pervaded as the woman slowly fed Danny. Neither of them knew what to say to ease the awkwardness. They simply watched Grace as she kicked and played with her rattle.
"How old is she?" Danny finally asked, breaking the silence. He didn't want her to think that he was sulking.
The woman smiled fondly down at her daughter. "Almost five months."
Danny couldn't hide his surprise. "Really?" he questioned. "I mean," he fumbled awkwardly, "she's so tiny. I thought she was only a couple of months old."
"She must weigh almost 15 pounds by now," the woman said as she offerred Danny some more soup. "She was barely over 5 pounds when she was born."
Danny's eyes grew wide at this fact. He had never realized that babies were actually that small. Logically he knew, but 5 pounds seemed so...tiny.
"You haven't been around babies much, have you?" the woman asked with a smile.
"No, ma'am," Danny said, blushing slightly.
"No younger brothers or sisters? Nieces? Nephews?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No ma'am. My mom died when I was real little and my dad never remarried. After he died I lived with Rafe's family and they only had him."
She nodded in understanding. "I suppose there aren't many babies around when you're training to be a pilot."
"No ma'am," he replied. "Not that I recall."
Suddenly Rafe's words began to echo in his mind - 'You're going to be a father, Danny. You're going to be a daddy.' Evelyn quickly came into focus, dressed as he'd last seen her, in mourning. Her eyes still red rimmed from crying. His mind quickly did the math. She'd be five months pregnant by now. He'd be a father in....late July.
Danny's throat began to tighten and he could feel the tears building up behind his eyes. He didn't want this woman to see him cry, so he did his best to shake off the sad feelings that were beginning to engulf him. "Truth is," he managed to say, though his voice sounded a bit thick to his ears, "today is the first time I ever remember holding one." He tried to offer her a small smile, but he was sure he failed miserably. "I'm sure glad I didn't hurt her or anything."
The woman smiled, but the concern in her eyes was obvious. "She's much sturdier than she looks." She noticed how Danny's eyes were glued to Grace, and that he looked inexplicably sad, but couldn't comprehend why.
Danny finally glanced up at the woman, seeing the questioning concern in her eyes. He knew that she realized that something was bothering him, but she wasn't going to ask.
"That's awfully good soup," he finally said, "but I don't think I could eat another bite."
She looked down at the half eaten bowl. "Are you sure?"
"Yes ma'am," Danny replied. Right now all he wanted was time to regroup. He didn't want to be thinking of Evelyn and the baby. He didn't want to this woman to be witness to him breaking down and probably crying like a baby himself. He'd wait until it was night and he could be alone with his thoughts.
She seemed to sense Danny's need for space. "Okay. It's probably best not to over do it on your first day, anyway." Standing up, she took the towel from around his neck and turned to leave the room.
"Thank you, ma'am."
"Kate," she said as she turned to face him again.
"Ma'am?" he asked, totally bewildered.
"My name," she replied, a blush creeping up her cheeks. "You can call me Kate. I can't believe that I forgot to introduce myself. It's just that I've been taking care of you for...." she trailed off, embarrassed. Walking back with a determined look on her face, she held out her hand towards him. "Kate Williams Helmsford," she said by way of introduction.
Danny took hold of her hand. "Daniel Joshua Walker. Or just Danny," he stated seriously. "It's a pleasure to meet you Kate."
They smiled briefly at each other then Kate turned to take away his dinner remains leaving Grace behind to coo and wiggle at Danny's feet. Coming back into the room, Kate picked up Grace, then looked down at Danny before leaving. "Is there anything I can get you?" she asked. "There aren't any books, but my husband left a couple of National geographics - they are sadly outdated, I'm afraid. We don't have a radio, either. Not much more than Japanese propaganda to pick up out here anyway."
"I'm fine," Danny reassured her. "Really." He paused. "I would like to know what happened to Rafe and the others, if that's all right. I'm feeling a might out of touch."
Kate nodded. "I imagine you are. Let me just clean up the kitchen a bit, then I'll need to feed Grace before she goes down for the night. Is that okay?"
Danny nodded. "That's fine by me. I'll just rest a bit more."
Moving as if to leave, Kate stopped and looked uncomfortably at the rocking chair and then at Danny. Danny could see that she wanted to say something but was having trouble getting it out. He waited.
"I usually feed her in here," Kate finally said. "It was easier when you were sick," she rushed on as if she had to explain it to him. "I could take the chair into the other room, if you prefer. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. The crib has to stay, though. It's too big to move. She only wakes up once during the night - usually - so she probably won't disturb you too much. If that's okay, I mean, I could..."
"It's okay," Danny interrupted, wanting to ease her obvious embarrassment. "This is your house, I don't want to disrupt your life any more than I already have. She won't bother me at all," he reassured her. "And don't go moving the chair. I guess if you take care of her in here you can start telling me what I want to know, right?"
Kate glanced down shyly, the blush still on her cheeks. "Right," she agreed. "It's just that I don't want to make you uncomfortable. Some men...people...they don't like to see...they think it's rude, well," she stammered, her blush intensifing further. She was even further embarrassed to see that this was making Danny blush too. This was not an easy topic to discuss with a stranger. Things had been so much easier when he had be sick. Now there was a formality between them that she didn't quite know the rules to. She knew his body so well, but knew nothing of him and he knew nothing of her.
"It's okay, really," Danny tried to reassure her, ignoring the hot feeling in his own cheeks. "I grew up on a farm. Feeding the young is a natural thing. She's got to eat, right?" Kate nodded, grateful for his understanding. "Not that I mean to compare you to a farm animal, or such," Danny trailed off. "I mean," he tried to recover before he was totally embarrassed.
"I think I know what you are saying," Kate smiled, rescuing Danny before he embarrassed himself further. "Though there were times when I felt like a cow." Kate gave a little laugh of relief, thankful that Danny wasn't like her own husband who thought that nursing a child was disgusting. "It's settled then. I'll eat some dinner, clean up a bit and then come in here and we can talk while I take care of Grace."
"Sounds good," Danny replied as she retreated out of the room. Once the door closed behind her he shook his head ruefully. "Farm animals?! God, you are such on idiot," he whispered to himself.
This time, when Danny woke up there were definite hunger pains in his stomach. The sun light was beginning to fade. There was a greyish cast to the room now and shadows were beginning to creep in. He must have slept most of the day. Glancing over at the crib he was surprised to see that Grace was still sleeping. Babies slept a lot, he supposed, but all day? Had she already awoken once and was now napping again? He must have been more tired than he had thought.
He watched as the baby began to stir. She was a pretty little thing with whispy chestnut hair a few shades darker than her mother's and an angel face that was very much the same, though Grace's was chubby with babiness. He couldn't remember if she had her mother's stunning eyes. She was so tiny he couldn't imagine her being more than a month or two old. His savior definitely had had her hands full with the two of them.
Shifting a bit, Danny eased himself into a semi reclining position. There was some tenderness in his back, but no pain. Looking down at his bare chest he cold see the pink scars of the exit wounds. Not really a pretty sight, but they looked to be healing okay.
His movement caused the bed to squeak and the loud noise startled Grace who began to whimper.
"Sh, sh," Danny worriedly crooned when the whimpers increased to full cries. "It's okay, sweetheart. "Sh, sh, ....it's okay." He was trying not to panic, but her cries were becoming louder. He tried to reach into the crib to pat her back or something, but he could only touch her small foot which was kicking with more and more force.
Glancing at the door, Danny expected to see the woman entering any second, but he heard nothing from the other room. Grace's cries were becoming more insistant and he knew he couldn't just sit there and do nothing.
Slowly swinging his feet to the floor, Danny sat up in bed. He felt a slight sense of vertigo, but waited for it to pass. When he was ready he stood up on shaky legs, surprised at how hard this simple action was as sweat began to break out all over his body and black dots swam across his vision. Knowing that he wasn't going to be able to stand for very long, Danny reached into the crib and scooped up the baby. Holding her as tightly as he dared, he quickly sat down again, the dizziness caused by his sudden exertion making his head spin. It was surprising to him how such a little thing as Grace could seem so heavy. He was much weaker than he thought. How long had he been out, he wondered.
Swinging his legs back up onto the bed, Danny once again reclined against the headboard, the black dots slowly fading from his vision and his heart beat slowing down. Mercifully, Grace had stopped crying the instant he had picked her up. She was now content to chew on his dog tags, happily drooling onto his bare chest.
"Well, now what are we going to do, Little One?" he asked Grace. "I sure hope you aren't hungry, because I don't know where your mother is." He glance down at his new charge and couldn't help but smile as she toothlessly grinned up at him. She did have her mothers eyes, he noticed.
Feeling very unsure of himself, Danny made himself as comfortable as possible and prepared to wait for the woman to return. He began to pat Grace's back as he tunelessly hummed, not knowing what else to do.
Not five minutes later a door open and he heard light footsteps walking towards his room. The door began to open slowly, then flew the rest of the way open, banging into the dresser.
"It's okay," Danny said quickly, seeing the panic in the woman's green eyes as she took in the empty crib. "I was moving around a bit and I woke her up. I didn't mean to," he babbled. "I didn't mean to scare you and I probably shouldn't have picked her up, but she started crying and I didn't know what else to do, so I , well...I'm sorry to have scared you like that," he finished lamely, feeling like an idiot.
After seeing Grace safe in his arms, the woman slumped slightly against the door jamb, her hand still pressed against her heart. She offered him a tremulous smile. "It's okay," she said as she moved accross the room and began to disentangle Grace from his arms and dogtags. "I should apologize to you. I knew she wouldn't sleep very long, she never does in the afternoon, but I wanted to go to Mr. Chan's to get some more salve. I took longer than expected. I'm truely sorry," she said, looking earnestly at him. "Are you okay?"
Flustered by her apology, Danny could only stammer, "I'm fine. Just fine." They looked awkwardly at each other, not quite sure what to say next. Danny's stomach let out a loud rumble. He blushed and she smiled.
"Hungry?"
"Uh, yes ma'am," he replied sheepishly.
"Good," she said, turning to leave the room. "Mrs. Chan sent a pot of chicken and rice soup." Within moments she was back with his dinner.
Laying Grace on the bed and giving her a toy to play with, the woman then placed a towel around Danny's neck. Realizing that she was going to spoon feed him, Danny began to protest.
"You, you don't have to do this," he stammered. "I can feed myself. I could probably even make it to the kitchen. I don't ......"
"Listen Flyboy," she interrupted, though not unkindly. "You've been lying in this bed for almost 3 weeks. You're recovering from two bullet wounds, blood loss and an infection that had your temperature spiking up to 104 degrees. If you think there is any chance that I'm going to let you get out of this bed and walk into the kitchen and possibly undue all my hard work by having you pass out on me, then you are seriously delusional."
"Fine," Danny continued to protest, "I won't go into the kitchen. But I can feed myself."
She looked him over for a long moment. "I bet you got dizzy and had little black spots floating accross your eyes when you picked up Grace." She looked him straight in the eye and Danny looked away sheepishly, knowing that what she said was dead on. "Broke into a sweat? Had weak, shaky legs?" Danny nodded. "I worked hard to keep you alive, and now that you're awake I don't want you to take any steps backwards, okay? You don't have to act all macho. Humor me, Flyboy," she said, offering him a smile.
"Okay," Danny finally submitted, feeling like an chastised school boy. He didn't like having to be fed like a baby, but the truth was he was feeling pretty weak. Picking up Grace had taken a lot more out of him then he was willing to admit.
Silence pervaded as the woman slowly fed Danny. Neither of them knew what to say to ease the awkwardness. They simply watched Grace as she kicked and played with her rattle.
"How old is she?" Danny finally asked, breaking the silence. He didn't want her to think that he was sulking.
The woman smiled fondly down at her daughter. "Almost five months."
Danny couldn't hide his surprise. "Really?" he questioned. "I mean," he fumbled awkwardly, "she's so tiny. I thought she was only a couple of months old."
"She must weigh almost 15 pounds by now," the woman said as she offerred Danny some more soup. "She was barely over 5 pounds when she was born."
Danny's eyes grew wide at this fact. He had never realized that babies were actually that small. Logically he knew, but 5 pounds seemed so...tiny.
"You haven't been around babies much, have you?" the woman asked with a smile.
"No, ma'am," Danny said, blushing slightly.
"No younger brothers or sisters? Nieces? Nephews?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No ma'am. My mom died when I was real little and my dad never remarried. After he died I lived with Rafe's family and they only had him."
She nodded in understanding. "I suppose there aren't many babies around when you're training to be a pilot."
"No ma'am," he replied. "Not that I recall."
Suddenly Rafe's words began to echo in his mind - 'You're going to be a father, Danny. You're going to be a daddy.' Evelyn quickly came into focus, dressed as he'd last seen her, in mourning. Her eyes still red rimmed from crying. His mind quickly did the math. She'd be five months pregnant by now. He'd be a father in....late July.
Danny's throat began to tighten and he could feel the tears building up behind his eyes. He didn't want this woman to see him cry, so he did his best to shake off the sad feelings that were beginning to engulf him. "Truth is," he managed to say, though his voice sounded a bit thick to his ears, "today is the first time I ever remember holding one." He tried to offer her a small smile, but he was sure he failed miserably. "I'm sure glad I didn't hurt her or anything."
The woman smiled, but the concern in her eyes was obvious. "She's much sturdier than she looks." She noticed how Danny's eyes were glued to Grace, and that he looked inexplicably sad, but couldn't comprehend why.
Danny finally glanced up at the woman, seeing the questioning concern in her eyes. He knew that she realized that something was bothering him, but she wasn't going to ask.
"That's awfully good soup," he finally said, "but I don't think I could eat another bite."
She looked down at the half eaten bowl. "Are you sure?"
"Yes ma'am," Danny replied. Right now all he wanted was time to regroup. He didn't want to be thinking of Evelyn and the baby. He didn't want to this woman to be witness to him breaking down and probably crying like a baby himself. He'd wait until it was night and he could be alone with his thoughts.
She seemed to sense Danny's need for space. "Okay. It's probably best not to over do it on your first day, anyway." Standing up, she took the towel from around his neck and turned to leave the room.
"Thank you, ma'am."
"Kate," she said as she turned to face him again.
"Ma'am?" he asked, totally bewildered.
"My name," she replied, a blush creeping up her cheeks. "You can call me Kate. I can't believe that I forgot to introduce myself. It's just that I've been taking care of you for...." she trailed off, embarrassed. Walking back with a determined look on her face, she held out her hand towards him. "Kate Williams Helmsford," she said by way of introduction.
Danny took hold of her hand. "Daniel Joshua Walker. Or just Danny," he stated seriously. "It's a pleasure to meet you Kate."
They smiled briefly at each other then Kate turned to take away his dinner remains leaving Grace behind to coo and wiggle at Danny's feet. Coming back into the room, Kate picked up Grace, then looked down at Danny before leaving. "Is there anything I can get you?" she asked. "There aren't any books, but my husband left a couple of National geographics - they are sadly outdated, I'm afraid. We don't have a radio, either. Not much more than Japanese propaganda to pick up out here anyway."
"I'm fine," Danny reassured her. "Really." He paused. "I would like to know what happened to Rafe and the others, if that's all right. I'm feeling a might out of touch."
Kate nodded. "I imagine you are. Let me just clean up the kitchen a bit, then I'll need to feed Grace before she goes down for the night. Is that okay?"
Danny nodded. "That's fine by me. I'll just rest a bit more."
Moving as if to leave, Kate stopped and looked uncomfortably at the rocking chair and then at Danny. Danny could see that she wanted to say something but was having trouble getting it out. He waited.
"I usually feed her in here," Kate finally said. "It was easier when you were sick," she rushed on as if she had to explain it to him. "I could take the chair into the other room, if you prefer. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. The crib has to stay, though. It's too big to move. She only wakes up once during the night - usually - so she probably won't disturb you too much. If that's okay, I mean, I could..."
"It's okay," Danny interrupted, wanting to ease her obvious embarrassment. "This is your house, I don't want to disrupt your life any more than I already have. She won't bother me at all," he reassured her. "And don't go moving the chair. I guess if you take care of her in here you can start telling me what I want to know, right?"
Kate glanced down shyly, the blush still on her cheeks. "Right," she agreed. "It's just that I don't want to make you uncomfortable. Some men...people...they don't like to see...they think it's rude, well," she stammered, her blush intensifing further. She was even further embarrassed to see that this was making Danny blush too. This was not an easy topic to discuss with a stranger. Things had been so much easier when he had be sick. Now there was a formality between them that she didn't quite know the rules to. She knew his body so well, but knew nothing of him and he knew nothing of her.
"It's okay, really," Danny tried to reassure her, ignoring the hot feeling in his own cheeks. "I grew up on a farm. Feeding the young is a natural thing. She's got to eat, right?" Kate nodded, grateful for his understanding. "Not that I mean to compare you to a farm animal, or such," Danny trailed off. "I mean," he tried to recover before he was totally embarrassed.
"I think I know what you are saying," Kate smiled, rescuing Danny before he embarrassed himself further. "Though there were times when I felt like a cow." Kate gave a little laugh of relief, thankful that Danny wasn't like her own husband who thought that nursing a child was disgusting. "It's settled then. I'll eat some dinner, clean up a bit and then come in here and we can talk while I take care of Grace."
"Sounds good," Danny replied as she retreated out of the room. Once the door closed behind her he shook his head ruefully. "Farm animals?! God, you are such on idiot," he whispered to himself.